


Sick, Sort Of

by mamalovesherbagels



Series: Chimney Whump Central [2]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: chimney is a soft cinnamon roll who gets sick when he's anxious, maddie wants to give him the world and protect him from everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:14:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24254209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mamalovesherbagels/pseuds/mamalovesherbagels
Summary: After a stressed Bobby explodes at Chimney and says some hurtful words he doesn't actually mean, Maddie learns that her boyfriend doesn't always handle stress well.
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Series: Chimney Whump Central [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1726990
Comments: 7
Kudos: 28





	1. Chapter 1

“Chim, honey, are you listening?” she asks, more concerned than annoyed because he’s seemed a bit off for the thirty minutes that she’s been at his apartment despite his insistence that everything was fine.

“Chimney? Howie? You’re not having a stroke are you?” she jokes halfheartedly when he just stands there silently, squeezing his eyes shut tight.

“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbles, seeming like he’s trying very hard to concentrate on something, but god knows what.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” she says gently.

“I… um, hold on,” he says in a rush, cheeks flushed all of the sudden, “give me a minute.”

“What--?” she starts to ask, but trails off when speeds out of the room. She hears the “click” of the bathroom door locking before she can even think to chase after him.

Then she hears the retching.

Oh. He’s sick. That would explain why he seems so unrelaxed and uncomfortable.

“Honey,” she calls, politely knocking on the door, “let me in, please. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We both have professional medical experience.”

“Howie,” she calls more demandingly when she’s again met with silence, “door open now.”

“Just.. in a minute, Maddie,” he croaks back, and Maddie rolls her eyes.

On the one hand, she wants to respect his wish for privacy. On the other hand, fuck that, because if the roles were reversed she knows there’s a good chance he’d try and kick the door down.

Luckily, she has a nail file in her purse, and learned how to pick a lock with a nail file back when she was making some questionable decisions in college. Having to pretty much parent Buck as a teenager and thus grow up quickly lends itself quite nicely to having a rebellious phase when one finally has some freedom, it would turn out.

“I’m coming in,” she announces, before easily turning the lock and opening the door to find her boyfriend leaned back against the bathroom wall, panting a bit.

“H-how…?”

“I know how to pick a lock with a nail file,” she says as if it’s the most normal thing in the world, “and you wouldn’t open the door and I was worried.”

“Ever heard of privacy?” he asks tiredly, but there’s no malice in his voice and he’s even smiling at her the teensiest bit.

“Oh, please, if I was sick and locked myself in the bathroom you’d call Bobby to ask for the jaws of life.”

He winces a bit at that, but Maddie just assumes it’s because his stomach is bothering him.

“Anyway, I’m in here with you now whether you like it or not,” she says gently, moving to sit beside him and side hug him, “and you’re going to let me take care of you, you poor thing.”  
“I’m fine. I think I’m done now,” he sighs, leaning his head against her shoulder.

“You’re not fine,” Maddie hums, rubbing his back, “you’re sick, Chim.”  
“I’m not sick,” he grumbles, shaking his head.  
“You just threw up,” she says flatly, arching an eyebrow at him, “I know you like to downplay things but I think it’s pretty obvious what’s going on here.”  
“Not this time, actually,” he murmurs, glancing down at the floor before turning his head to meet her eyes, “just... happens sometimes, when I get really stressed. Really, I’m fine now, I promise. Not sick.”  
“Chim,” she murmurs, going quiet, eyebrows furrowed as she processes, “Chim, honey, what on earth has you so stressed out you’re puking and why didn’t you talk to me about it before it got to the point that it literally made you sick?”  
“Dunno,” he whines, hiding his face.  
“Howie,” she demands, tone and use of his legal name letting him know that she’s not messing around.  
“It’s just... Bobby. Got mad at me. He’s so stressed because of everything that happened with Athena, so when I said no to being temporary captain while he’s with her at the hospital he just... blew up at me. And I’ve tried calling and texting and he won’t answer. And I know he has a lot going on. It's just... god, he’s never been that angry before, not with me. With Buck, yes, but not me.”  
“Why don’t you want to fill in for him, Chim?”  
“Because I was so bad at it the last time,” he groans, “and I didn’t think it would be a big deal to say no. He got someone else to fill in when he went on that camping trip with Michael.”  
“He’s very stressed and he took it out on you,” Maddie murmurs, “which isn’t fair, no, but it means he’s not actually as mad with YOU as he seems. It’s not personal, okay? I’m sure he’ll come around and apologize soon. In the meantime, no more working yourself up to the point of getting sick, hm?”  
“Mmm. Will try not to. Sucks,” he groans, leaning into her a bit more, a telltale sign of his that he’s still upset or feeling ill, or both.

“Doesn’t seem fun,” she says with a sad smile, before mulling something over in her brain for a minute, “Chim? How often does that happen? You getting sick when you’re stressed out?”  
“Not very often,” he shakes his head, “only if I’m really, really anxious about something. Doesn’t happen often at all.”  
“Okay,” she nods, but makes a mental note to ask Buck if this is something he’s ever been witness to before, “are you feeling okay now?”  
“Yeah,” he sighs, “I’m fine now.”  
“How about we go lie down for a bit?” she asks diplomatically, “cuddle up and help you relax.”  
“Maddie…” he starts, wanting to tell her that he’s fine and doesn’t need her to baby him, but the concerned look on her face is making him feel guilty, and the thought of spending the day in bed with her, ignoring the outside world, does sound really nice, “okay. That sounds perfect.”  
“I’ll meet you there. Let me get you some water,” she hums, kissing his cheek before scurrying.  
He takes his time getting up from the bathroom floor, suddenly realizing how exhausted he is. It shouldn’t surprise him, as he was up most of the night before thinking about his argument with Bobby, and Athena’s muffled grunts as they helplessly listened to her struggling with a violent attack, but he guesses he was just too wired to really feel the lack of sleep. A nice, lazy day napping on and off with Maddie is most likely exactly what he needs.

“Here, drink some of this and then I’ll tuck you in.”

“Maddie,” he all but snorts, “I’m not actually sick, you don’t have to baby me.”

“I’m worried about you,” she coos, “I’ve never seen you this anxious before. Just let me take care of you.”

“Fiiiiiiiiiine,” he relents, as if he’s doing her some big favor, but really, the attention feels nice. He’s not used to having someone to look after him when he’s not feeling his best, but he supposes he could get used to it. Especially if the person looking after him is Maddie.

After about half of the glass of water is gone, she tucks him in and kisses his forehead before slipping into bed next to him. She smiles when he curls up into her side and smiles again when he slips into sleep not even five minutes later.

“Poor baby. I might have to have a word with Bobby later,” she sighs, “not that I don’t sympathize with him, I just… don’t like anyone making you feel so bad, even if there were extenuating circumstances. Of course you were too on edge to think about filling in as captain again after having to work on Bobby’s wife, you didn’t deserve to be yelled at.”

A few hours later, she finds herself marching into the fire station, having left a still peacefully sleeping Chimney in his bed. She knows he wouldn’t approve of it, but the more she hypothesizes what Bobby possibly could have said to make Chimney so upset, the more she immediately needs to know, and she’s not going to wake him from the sleep he so desperately needs. She thinks there’s a good chance Buck or Hen or Eddie might have overheard some it, and she knows they’re more likely to spill if she comes and begs them in person as opposed to on the phone where they could just hang up.

What she doesn’t expect is to find Bobby at the fire station. She tries, she really tries to keep her cool, because she knows the Bobby that yelled at her boyfriend is not his usual self, but she can’t help but form a death glare on her face.

“Oh crap, who pissed her off? I know it wasn’t me this time, or at least I think it wasn’t,” Buck says with a nervous laugh.

“I’m betting on, Cap,” Hen says with a smirk.

“Wait, what, why?”

“The fight he and Chimney had last night,” Eddie answers, undeniably a bit excited by the prospect of the drama that might be about to happen.

“What, they got in a fight? How come no one ever tells me anything?”

“Oh, it was baaaaaaaaaad,” Hen chuckles, completely sympathetic to her boss but at the same time completely okay with a pissed off Maddie ready to defend her best friend’s honor.

“Maddie,” Bobby says carefully, looking ashamed, “I was going to come by to apologize to him in person after my shift. Is he okay?”

“He’s asleep right now,” she replies, arms tightly crossed against her chest, “but he’s not feeling very well. I don’t know exactly what you said to him, but whatever it was he’s scared you hate him and is so stressed that he threw up.”

“Oh, Chim,” Hen sighs, knowing that it’s a thing that happens to him when he’s feeling really anxious.

“Maddie,” Bobby whispers, unable to meet her eye, “Maddie, I am so, so sorry, and I’m going to let Chimney know that in person, but I just… I don’t know what came over me. Well, everything with Athena, but… I shouldn’t have said what I said, or even gotten angry at all. A little frustrated, maybe, but I should have known that he was feeling stressed, too. I didn’t mean what I said. Chimney always steps up when the team needs him.”

“Oh,” Maddie says, starting to understand her boyfriend’s anguish, “oh, Bobby, I know you didn’t mean to, but I think you might have hit a nerve.”

“...I did?” he asks softly, looking even more ashamed than before, and as much as she wants to, she can’t find it in her to yell at him.

“It’s not my place to say,” almost rolling her eyes when she sees Hen mouth “his father” at Eddie and Buck, “but that’s sort of… a sore spot to him. Someone said pretty much the exact thing to him once, someone he really cared about, and it cut him pretty deep. You need to make it right.”

“I will, I promise,” he nods earnestly, and then a second later the bell goes off.

“I will,” Bobby repeats, tentatively patting her shoulder before he and the rest of his team, minus her boyfriend, rush off toward the fire trucks.

On the way back to Chimney’s apartment she stops to pick up a cupcake from his favorite coffee shop to make him smile if he’s feeling up to eating.

“Chim?” she calls softly as she slips back into his apartment, not wanting to wake him if he’s still asleep.

“Hi,” he whispers hoarsely, sitting on the couch with his legs crossed and his eyes red.

“Oh, honey,” she sighs sadly, rushing over to hug him.

She’s glad Bobby is going to come over, because maybe she does need to yell at him after all.


	2. Chapter 2

“It’s not too late to ask Bobby to come in the morning,” Maddie says, noting the scrunching of her boyfriend’s eyes, the frown lines on his forehead, and how his teeth are going at the piece of gum in his mouth like a jackhammer to pavement. She had managed to nearly completely relax him earlier with kisses and blankets and multiple mugs of herbal tea, but ever since they got the “coming over now” text from Bobby it seemed as if all her efforts went flying out of the window.

“No, no, I wanna get it over with,” he sighs, “the longer I put it off the more anxious I’m going to be about it.”

“Okay,” Maddie relents, still not thrilled about seeing Bobby after the havoc she had wreaked on her love’s mind, even though she knows he’s coming to apologize and hopefully soothe Chimney’s anxieties. 

And she knows she’s not being entirely fair to him by being filled with so much anger, because really, she wouldn’t want to be held responsible for some of things she had said to others when Evan was in surgery after a fire truck fell on him and crushed his leg, but she can’t help it. Chimney likes to try and keep his more difficult emotions a solely internal experience, and while she’s appreciative he’s being open with her, she knows it’s only because he’s so stressed he feels he cannot physically hold it inside of himself anymore.

And that’s because of Bobby.

“Maddie, please don’t yell at him.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” she replies, and it’s only kind of sort of a lie, because while true she also wasn’t planning on NOT yelling at him either.

Before he can retort that, uh, the look on her face makes him not so sure of that, there’s a knock on the door and he all but leaps up to get it before Maddie can. As… hesitant with Bobby as he is at the moment, he still doesn’t want him to experience the full brunt of Maddie’s protective wrath. It’s one of the things he loves about her, really, how she morphs from kind and sweet to willing to verbally decimate someone to protect those she cares about, but he knows that Bobby is at least as fragile as he is right now, if not more.

“Hi,” Chimney says quietly, making a “come on in” motion with his hand.

“Hi, Chim,” he says with an uncharacteristic meekness, stalling a bit before adding an even meeker, “Hi, Maddie.”

“Hi,” she replies cooly, biting her lip to keep from adding anything… else, to that sentence, “I’ll give you two some privacy.”

“I’m surprised she’s not screaming,” Bobby jokes quietly, breathing in deeply as if he’s trying to build up some courage.

“I told her not to,” he shrugs, fighting the urge to wrap his arms around himself in a self-hug.

“Look, Chim,” Bobby sighs, “I owe you one hell of an apology. I can’t believe that I even said all of those things to you, but I did, and I am so sorry, and I didn’t mean any of them.”

“Didn’t you though?” Chimney breathes after a beat of silence, “I mean, maybe some of the other stuff about me being a coward you didn’t mean, but the not being willing to step up…”

“There’s a difference between knowing your limits during an incredibly stressful time and not stepping up. I was upset, to say the least, I was terrified and devastated and just wanted to check the temporary captain box of my list and when my first choice said no I just… lost it. Lashed out at you. It was both severely unfair and unprofessional, and I cannot express to you with words how incredibly sorry I am.”

“I just… I know I should have said yes--”

“I don’t ever want to make you do anything you’re not comfortable with, Chim. A good captain knows when to push someone to be their best and when someone’s hit their limit, and last night I was not a good captain.”

“Maybe not the best,” Chimney says with a little snort, and Bobby knows if that Chimney joking around means he’s already at least eighty percent forgiven.

“You are an excellent firefighter and paramedic, and you always rise to the occasion when one of the team needs assistance,” Bobby continues, “and I don’t know if you have realized this yet, but you have excellent leadership skills.”

“Don’t know about that,” Chimney sighs, picking up his gum chewing pace once more, “don’t really see yourself as a leader.”

“Doesn’t mean that you’re not one,” Bobby counters, “we don’t always see our potential the way other people do.”

“I guess.”

“Chimney, I absolutely should have respected you not wanting to fill in for me as captain, but I need you to know that I am completely and fully certain that you would have done an amazing job.”

“You have to say that; you’re grovelling for my forgiveness.”

“A good captain never falsely reassures one of his team members about their aptitude, and I may not have been a good captain last night, but I’d like to think I am one the majority of the time.”

“You’re a great captain,” Chimney says sincerely, “you are a great captain and I accept your apology.”

“Thank you, Chim. Do me one favor, though?”

“A favor? You just got back in my good graces and you already are asking a favor of me?” he replies with faux shock.

“Work on believing in yourself,” Bobby says, looking him right in the eye, “trust me, you’re worth it.”

“...Thanks, Cap,” Chimney whispers, shifting in his seat, a bit uncomfortable with the idea of accepting both the praise and the suggestion.

“I need to get back to Athena. Reynalds is going to fill in for me stating tomorrow, so don’t worry about that. You just… you just try and get some rest, okay? You look like hell, Chim.”

“Thanks, Bobby, love you, too!”

Maddie strolls back into the living room when she hears the front door click shut, heading straight to her chosen seat in his lap.

“Did it go okay, my love?”

“Yeah,” he nods, wrapping his arms around her, “yeah, it went well. We’re all good now and I feel a lot better. Glad I got it over with.”

“Good,” she murmurs, kissing his cheek, “though you are certainly a more forgiving person than I am. I definitely would’ve milked it to try and get something out of it if he said those kinds of things to ME.”

“Oh? What do you think I should have extorted my love for him for?”

“I don’t know, some extra vacation days that you could have spent ravishing your girlfriend?”

“...You know, you definitely are the smart one in this relationship.”

“Chimney, you’re brilliant,” she laughs, “and besides, you have plenty of vacation days even without extortion. Have you even taken a day off since you started with the LAFD?”

“A few personal days after Kevin died and one sick day when I had pneumonia, but never a vacation day, no.”

“You had pneumonia and you only took ONE day off?” she asks incredulously.

“I wasn’t contagious after 24 hours on antibiotics!”

“I… I don’t even know where to begin with that, so I’m not going to,” she chuckles, “but maybe us both taking a few days off work together sometime in the near future wouldn’t be such a bad idea?”

“Are you suggesting we take a vacation?”

“I was suggesting we relax and have a lot of sex,” she says bluntly, “but you know, maybe being in a city with less traffic for a bit would be nice.”

“Can we still have lots of sex in between enjoying driving without constantly being stuck at an intersection for twenty minutes?”

“I think that can be arranged,” she giggles, “where do you want to go?”

“Well, right now the bedroom. Maybe we can figure out the vacation part later?”

“See?” she grins devilishly, “you’re plenty smart.”


End file.
